Eggplant.place

2d

Stone going home again to stone;
poor helpless house, your heart is ash,
bone-shelter of this country’s bone…

—Walter Perrie, “Stone Going Home Again”
published in Stone Going Home Again: New Writing Scotland 28 (ASL, 2010)

“the job of poetry is not to explain the magical mysteries of life but to enumerate and illuminate them”
—Richie McCaffery reviews Walter Perrie’s THE AGES OF WATER (Grace Note Publications, 2020)

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2023/11/the-ages-of-water-by-walter-perrie/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem

Walter Perrie
STONE GOING HOME AGAIN

Stone going home again to stone;
poor helpless house, your heart is ash,
bone-shelter of this country’s bone,
abandoned arteries, old Perthshire flesh,
stoor smothers every good Scots word.
Ghosts, who, though the roof-beam falls,
who brought you sheep and the shepherd,
speech and song, still prowl your walls.

Only the rowans they planted
keep them out. Only from haunted
sky and wood their silence to your silence calls –
now only the wild birds; starling, mavis, rook,
brown wren that through the thicket moves,
and buzzard piaow and pheasant croak,
and the untranslatable noise of doves.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

3d

There is recent talk
of re-introducing wolves
to this demi-nation
of lambs and glaikit rams
and scraggy ewes,
(and – let’s face it –
hardly any shepherds left to care)…

—Douglas Lipton, “Wolves”
published in Such Strange Joy (inyx, 2001)

Today, 13 August, is International Wolf Day 🐺

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/wolves/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #wolf #wolves #InternationalWolfDay

Wolves
Douglas Lipton

for the new Scottish Parliament

The icy rain is spitting
on the pines and golden birches.
Hangings of black cloud
are torn apart by sunbursts
and then tugged shut again.

Behind us wait Przewalski’s Horses,
black Aurochs, Arctic Fox, Wisent, Lynx
and the other extinct of the country.
We are approaching the enclave
of the Wolves. You hold me,
Kiss me. The children are scurrying.
Our friends, too, are there
with two more scurriers
and a screamer in a papoose
and we are followed by other little packs
of back-bitten families,
out for a day of different frictions,
weather-incited.

From a crag of varnished wood
and plate-glass
we watch those almost-
wild dogs of the north
examine their territory,
tear meat and socialise.
Their puppies play,
rollicking like boulders of fur
in a river of pure air.

There is recent talk
of re-introducing wolves
to this demi-nation
of lambs and glaikit rams
and scraggy ewes,
(and – let’s face it –
hardly any shepherds left to care),
but the wolves are sure to be enclosed
or else we’d dare
to be entire again,
let forests grow,
and take our chances.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

3d

Thar na sìorraidheachd, thar a sneachda,
chì mi mo dhàin neo-dheachdte,
chì mi lorgan an spòg a’ breacadh
gile shuaimhneach an t-sneachda:
calg air bhoile, teanga fala,
gadhair chaola ’s madaidhean-allaidh…

—Somhairle MacGill-Eain, “Coin is Madaidhean-allaidh”
published in Caoir Gheal Leumraich / White Leaping Flame (Birlinn, 2023)

International Wolf Day 🐺

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/white-leaping-flame-caoir-gheal-leumraich/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #InternationalWolfDay

Coin is Madaidhean-allaidh
Somhairle MacGill-Eain

Thar na sìorraidheachd, thar a sneachda,
chì mi mo dhàin neo-dheachdte,
chì mi lorgan an spòg a’ breacadh
gile shuaimhneach an t-sneachda:
calg air bhoile, teanga fala,
gadhair chaola ’s madaidhean-allaidh
a’ leum thar mullaichean nan gàrradh,
a’ ruith fo sgàil nan craobhan fàsail,
a’ gabhail cumhang nan caol-ghleann,
a’ sireadh caisead nan gaoth-bheann;
an langan gallanach a’ sianail
thar loman cruaidhe nan àm cianail,
an comhartaich bhiothbhuan ’na mo chluasan,
an deann-ruith a’ gabhail mo bhuadhan:
rèis nam madadh ’s nan con iargalt
luath air tòrachd an fhiadhaich
tro na coilltean gun fhiaradh,
thar mullaichean nam beann gun shiaradh;
coin chiùine caothaich na bàrdachd,
madaidhean air tòir na h-àilleachd,
àilleachd an anama ’s an aodainn,
fiadh geal thar bheann is raointean,
fiadh do bhòidhche ciùine gaolaich,
fiadhach gun sgur gun fhaochadh.

ALT

Dogs and Wolves
Sorley MacLean

Across eternity, across its snows,
I see my unwritten poems,
I see the spoor of their paws dappling
the untroubled whiteness of the snow:
bristles raging, bloody-tongued,
lean greyhounds and wolves
leaping over the tops of the dykes,
running under the shade of the trees of the wilderness,
taking the defile of narrow glens,
making for the steepness of windy mountains;
their baying yell shrieking
across the hard barenesses of the terrible times,
their everlasting barking in my ears,
their onrush seizing my mind:
career of wolves and eerie dogs
swift in pursuit of the quarry,
through the forests without veering,
over the mountain-tops without sheering;
the mild mad dogs of poetry,
wolves in chase of beauty,
beauty of soul and face,
a white deer over hills and plains,
the deer of your gentle beloved beauty,
a hunt without halt, without respite.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1d

He will outlast us, churning out his books,
advocate and historian, his prose
earning him Abbotsford with its borrowed gates,
its cheap mementos from the land he made…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “At the Scott Exhibition, Edinburgh Festival”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WalterScott #IainCrichtonSmith #writers #writing

AT THE SCOTT EXHIBITION, EDINBURGH FESTIVAL
Iain Crichton Smith

He will outlast us, churning out his books,
advocate and historian, his prose
earning him Abbotsford with its borrowed gates,
its cheap mementos from the land he made.
Walking the room together in this merciless
galaxy of manuscripts and notes
I am exhausted by such energy.
I hold your hand for guidance. Over your brow
the green light falls from tall and narrow windows.
His style is ignorant of this tenderness,
the vulnerable angle of your body
below the Raeburn with its steady gaze.

It was all in his life, not in his books
‘Oh I am dying, take me home to Scotland
where I can breathe though that breath were my last.’
He limped through an Edinburgh being made anew.
He worked his way through debts, past a dead wife.
My dear, we love each other in our weakness
as he with white grave face diminishing through
stroke after stroke down to the unpaid room.
We know what we are but know not what we will be.
I tremble in this factory of books.
What love he must have lost to write so much.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

«birthday»

mine was good

i had thai with my daughter
and her guy
who she's still with
and still madly in love with
and her job sucks
and she hates it
but she's making it happen

and I'm so happy,
and that's the best gift
I could have asked for

but she gave me weed too

#poetry #poetrycommunity #poem

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

读过 Who Was Langston Hughes?
https://neodb.social/book/4Bpl1exm8i4ixNxeOk9YY6
这本好玩，学到不少新概念，爵士诗歌、哈林文艺复兴，年轻时被共产主义（作为美国种族隔离的替代）吸引去过苏联和中国，晚年逐渐远离且去政治化。这本是 Gregory Copeland 的插画。
#biography #children #jazz poetry #poem #传记

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

读过 Who Was Langston Hughes? 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
这本好玩，学到不少新概念，爵士诗歌、哈林文艺复兴，年轻时被共产主义（作为美国种族隔离的替代）吸引去过苏联和中国，晚年逐渐远离且去政治化。这本是 Gregory Copeland 的插画。

#biography #children #jazz poetry #poem #传记

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

"The World Is On Fire" is a spontaneously composed, unedited poem by Stan Stewart. Because it is improvised, you know it's from his heart.
#improv #poem #world #fire

https://muz4now.com/2024/the-world-is-on-fire-an-improv-poem/

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

1y

Sniff
Baking
Cookie smell
Grandma's cooking
Unmistakable -
Rich tantalising scents
Resistance impossible
Heaven - a moment on that tray
Fingers poised, waiting for approval
Once we have seized the day, all that's left - crumbs!

#Cookie #MastoPrompt #Etheree #Poem #Poetry #MicroPoems #WritingCommunity #PoetryCommunity

Toffee and Chocolate chip cookies cooling on a wire rack

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

355d

Hpy Bdy

I am not here.
Not really. And not as you
read these imaginary words
resisting the urge to flee
the page crowded white
words filling every pixel .
Coffee unhelpful in
the face of great opposit
-ions bouncing every where
but where I wish
To be, I must choose

#poem #poetry #poetrycommunity

Site of the poem’s composition, being a cafe overlooking Circular Quay, a shadowed table in the foreground holding a coffee cup and an empty small plate, and in the background the rising buildings of Sydney CBD.

ALT

Edited 352d ago

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

338d

*//
《台灯下的蜘蛛》

在一个夜晚，我发现它
悬浮于我的笔记本上方
一只灰黑色的蜘蛛，无所适从
它在我的书桌上迷路了多久？
很快，我的发现再次惊扰它
不得不向着更黑暗处流浪
在二十平米的房间绕行一周后
它会试着接受，
与一个人类同居的事实

2024 年 8 月 15 日
#诗 #poem #poetry #2gpoetband

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

338d

*//
《无人罚站的午后》

在午后的雷声中想起往事
也许并没有那道雷
只是记忆中的闪回
光线穿过，两扇窗帘汇合处
就像大汗淋漓梦中惊醒
或者，什么也没有梦到
只是想起往事
想起还小的时候
站在房檐下无人罚站的午后

2024 年 8 月 15 日
#诗 #poem #poetry #2gpoetband

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

318d

*//

我給你的愛以數量取勝
寫一百封情書
郵費又上漲了呢
我很著急
一筐筐蘋果正在運送而來的路上
到你手上就熟透了吧
或許我還是應該
採摘青澀的那些
不成熟的愛數以萬計

不成熟的愛數以萬計
但我相信
再青澀的都會在你手中漸漸成熟
我的耐心要比路程更長
比宇宙終始更長
當他們把咖啡果實叫做咖啡櫻桃
驚愕之餘，也感到釋懷
請把我也種在山林裡
我會和陽光，和成熟消耗的時間和解

⋯⋯
love letter

#诗 #poem #poetry #2gpoetband

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

326d

*//
《伞的坟墓》

风穴，是城市受到的诅咒
是伞的坟墓，晴天雨天
连同它庇护下的一株野草
也被连根拔起，翻腾
我们卷进夏季的尾声

2024 年 8 月 25 日
#诗 #poem #poetry #2gpoetband

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

258d

‘Something or Other’

Patience in a nutshell:
I have none
And everything’s electric
Sizzling with ambition
Lost in seconds passing
Drags away my soul
Each breath a tiny whisper
Heaving life into the night
Scattered dreams a haunting
Train-wreck crashing through
My desiccated brainwaves
Superheated with emojis
Vapourware a hunted bunyip
Seeking hard the pathway forward
Shards of glass all flaming hot,
Yet beyond that hell a fountain

#poem #poetry #poetrycommunity

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

67d

"Give me a little less
with every dawn."

Marjorie Lotfi performs John Burnside's "Prayer" in a film directed by Savannah Acquah, from a new series from the ‪Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation & the Writers’ Mosaic

https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/prayer

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #JohnBurnside

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

128d

Rare, oh it's so rare
To meet somebody
Able to understand you
So deeply that
You never feel alone.

-Debora Radice

❤️

@poetry

#readersdon #writersdon #bookstodon #poetry #poem #poesia #poems #poesie #thoughts #pensieri #thought #pensiero #poemoftheday #thoughtoftheday #poesiadelgiorno #pensierodelgiorno

Edited 128d ago

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

14d

Beyond ruined houses and a past
eroded by salt and marram grass
stretch miles of sand dunes
where as kids we hurled ourselves
into space …

—Eleanor Livingstone, “Breathless”
from In the Event of Fire: New Writing Scotland 27 (ASLS, 2009)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Eleanor Livingstone
BREATHLESS

Beyond ruined houses and a past
eroded by salt and marram grass
stretch miles of sand dunes
where as kids we hurled ourselves
into space, legs and rebel cries
suspended in the air, landing

spread-eagled in cotton shorts
and bare legs, winded but alive.

On August evenings years later
under cover of dark we returned
stumbling in and out of rabbit holes
to find the sand sun-warmed, soft
and far enough removed for us
to lie as still and silent as the sea

but for fingers finding buttons
and the racket of our hearts.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

93d

“Multitudes” is a #haiku from Library on Fire, my 3rd volume of #poetry available at https://www.nihtgengapress.com/product/library-on-fire

#books #indie #poem

Multitudes
I must remember
Within my darkness resides
Multitudes of stars

ALT

Edited 93d ago

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

77d

Thae laddies in the Celtic shirts,
a baker’s dozen
lumbering all the way to the summit cairn
the hot last Saturday of May
as larks trilled
and the loch-side braes released their midgies…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Ben Lomond”
published in THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-bonniest-companie/9781509801718

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Ben Lomond
Kathleen Jamie

Thae laddies in the Celtic shirts,
a baker’s dozen
lumbering all the way to the summit cairn
the hot last Saturday of May
as larks trilled
and the loch-side braes released their midgies …

Well, up at the raven-haunted trig-point
(as the sun shone bright o’er the whole lower Clyde)
they unfurled a banner,
and triumphant-sombre, ranked themselves behind it
for the photies,
‘R.I.P.’ it read, then the name of a wee boy

they’ll never meet again. Ach,
would the wean were playing fit-ba
on some bonny banks somewhere …

There’s no accounting for it, is there?
I mean the low road, and the high.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

76d

We needed it—and he stood there,
feet on the dry porch, saying rain,
cloud and skyful, the sound of drumming…

—Niall Campbell, “The Rainmaker”
published in POETRY (July/August 2020)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/153822/the-rainmaker

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #rain

The Rainmaker
by Niall Campbell

We needed it—and he stood there,
feet on the dry porch, saying rain,
cloud and skyful, the sound of drumming;

the bath trough in the garden listened,
white and bone dry, as he described
a bright wash across the dust fields,

the surest downpour, the flushed skin,
my soaked shirt, heavy as a bell.
Then off he went to the scorched fields,

humming, and weighing what we paid.
What did he say: prayer is moisture;
hope is a well—I didn’t care,

I wanted just the words from him—
what I couldn’t dare say—not there
beneath that sun, that blur of fire-sky.

My thoughts all thoughts of water, I
spun my head round—to hear the spill
of the word rain across the boards,

and nothing grew dark, nothing fell—
but something fell, and the ground took,
and something wild as garlic grew.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

76d

Love rules. Love laughs. Love marches. Love is the wolf that guards the gate.
Love is the food of music, art, poetry. It fills us and fuels us and fires us to create.
Love is terror. Love is sweat. Love is bashed pillow, crumpled sheet, unenviable fate…

—Edwin Morgan, “Love”
A poem for Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
published in A BOOK OF LIVES (Carcanet, 2011)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549188/a-book-of-lives/

#Scottish #literature #EdwinMorgan #poem #poetry #love #lovepoem #loveislove #Pride #PrideMonth #PrideMonth2025

Love
by Edwin Morgan

Love rules. Love laughs. Love marches. Love is the wolf that guards the gate.
Love is the food of music, art, poetry. It fills us and fuels us and fires us to create.
Love is terror. Love is sweat. Love is bashed pillow, crumpled sheet, unenviable fate.
Love is the honour that kills and saves and nothing will ever let that high ambiguity abate.
Love is the crushed ice that tingles and shivers and clinks fidgin-fain for the sugar-drenched absinthe to fall on it and alter its state.
With love you send a probe
So far from the globe
No one can name the shoals the voids the belts the zones the drags the flares it signals all to leave all and to navigate.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

76d

Tenderness is mandatory.
Careless lurches may draw blood,
enthusiasms leave abrasions,
excessive ardour has been known
to snap off spinal plates…

—“The Mating of Dinosaurs”, by William Oliphant (1920–2004)
published in The Mating of Dinosaurs (Taranis Books, 1992)

Today, 1 June, is Dinosaur Day 🦖

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #dinosaurs #DinosaurDay

The Mating of Dinosaurs
William Oliphant

Tenderness is mandatory.
Careless lurches may draw blood,
enthusiasms leave abrasions,
excessive ardour has been known
to snap off spinal plates.

There is the constant burden of
the force of gravity that pulls
against the need for viable eggs.

The wear and tear on genitalia,
like spoil of grind of glacier, is
lost in some future fossil count.

The adaptationists suggest
that gentleness emerges here,
and some will come to call it love.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

75d

it is dawn and my wife is coming to bed
and she has been watching a film about the life of charlie parker

and the air in the bedroom is silent while she undresses
and the light is there at the side of the curtain beyond her head…

—Tom Leonard, “June the Second”, from outside the narrative: poems 1965–2009 (Etruscan Books/Word Power Books 2009)

https://lighthousebookshop.com/book/9780956628336

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

June the Second
Tom Leonard

it is dawn and my wife is coming to bed
and she has been watching a film about the life of charlie parker

and the air in the bedroom is silent while she undresses
and the light is there at the side of the curtain beyond her head

and she tells me his body gave up of drink and drugs when he was 34
and I decide I am awake and go to the kitchen for a drink of water

and the sky in the north is translucent like a lake
translucent like a lake though it is only 3 am

and when I go back we lightly hold hands as we sometimes do
until the first to be falling asleep begins to twitch and tonight it’s Sonya

and I withdraw my hand and lie back looking at the ceiling
I am aged 51 years and nine months and nine to ten days

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original

75d

Get a head start by having a first name
that doesn’t really go with your second name.
Your parents were just trying to keep everyone happy…

—Palma McKeown, “How To Be Scots-Italian”
published in TALKING ABOUT LOBSTERS: New Writing Scotland 34 (ASL, 2016)
A poem for Festa della Repubblica 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇹

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #ScotsItalian #Italy #FestaDellaRepubblica

Get a head start by having a first name
that doesn’t really go with your second name.
Your parents were just trying to keep everyone happy.
Keep a bottle of Lacryma Christi for when
your Auntie Anna calls in unexpectedly.
Hide the jar of instant coffee in case
she comes into the kitchen & dust off
the old metal coffee pot that unscrews in the middle.
Put out that panettone you got at Christmas
then watch as she scoffs all the Tunnock’s Teacakes.
Learn to sidle down side streets or
melt into shop doorways when you see
old Mr D’Ambrosio coming because, despite
the fact he’s lived here for over sixty years,
you still can’t make out a word he’s saying.
Be prepared to serve sausage rolls & salami di Milano
at Hogmanay parties & give equal play time
to Jimmy Shand & Dean Martin.
You’re just trying to keep everyone happy.
Listen politely to your Auntie Carmen from Coatbridge
when she phones at three in the morning to ask
if everything’s okay because she’s had a dream
about you & the number 62
which signifies death & pestilence.
Try unsuccessfully to get back to sleep.
Feel torn when Italy is playing Scotland at football
until the crowd starts to sing ‘Flower of Scotland’
and a wee tear runs down your cheek.
Try not to get bitter that you never knew
your Italian granddad because during the war
he was taken away by two Scottish policemen
in the middle of the night, herded onto a ship
and was lost at sea when it was torpedoed.
Churchill was just trying to keep everyone happy.

ALT

0 0 0 View Post & Replies See Original